'Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready
to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not
that they do evil. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine
heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and
thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. 3. For a dream cometh
through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by
multitude of words. 4. When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to
pay it; for He hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast
vowed. 5. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou
shouldest vow and not pay. 6. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh
to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error:
wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of
thine hands? 7. For in the multitude of dreams and many words there
are also divers vanities: but fear thou God. 8. If thou seest the
oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice
in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than
the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they. 9. Moreover, the
profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the
field. 10. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver;
nor he that loveth abundance with increase. This is also vanity. 11.
When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good
is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with
their eyes? 12. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat
little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to
sleep.'--ECCLES. v. 1-12.
This passage is composed of two or perhaps three apparently
disconnected sections. The faults in worship referred to in verses 1-7
have nothing to do with the legalised robbery of verse 8, nor has the
demonstration of the folly of covetousness in verses 10-12 any
connection with either of the preceding subjects. But they are brought
into unity, if they are taken as applications in different directions
of the bitter truth which the writer sets himself to prove runs
through all life. 'All is vanity.' That principle may even be
exemplified in worship, and the obscure verse 7 which closes the
section about the faults of worship seems to be equivalent to the more
familiar close which rings the knell of so many of men's pursuits in
this book, 'This also is vanity.' It stands in the usual form in verse
10.
We have in verses 1-7 a warning against the faults in worship which
make even it to be 'vanity,' unreal and empty and fruitless. These are
of three sorts, arranged, as it were, chronologically. The worshipper
is first regarded as going to the house of God, then as presenting his
prayers in it, and then as having left it and returned to his ordinary
life. The writer has cautions to give concerning conduct before,
during, and after public worship.
Note that, in all three parts of his warnings, his favourite word of
condemnation appears as describing the vain worship to which he
opposes the right manner. They who fall into the faults condemned are
'fools.' If that class includes all who mar their worship by such
errors, the church which holds them had need to be of huge dimensions;
for the faults held up in these ancient words flourish in full
luxuriance to-day, and seem to haunt long-established Christianity
quite as mischievously as they did long-established Judaism. If we
could banish them from our religious assemblies, there would be fewer
complaints of the poor results of so much apparently Christian prayer
and preaching.
Fruitful and acceptable worship begins before it begins. So our
passage commences with the demeanour of the worshipper on his way to
the house of God. He is to keep his foot; that is, to go deliberately,
thoughtfully, with realisation of what he is about to do. He is to
'draw near to hear' and to bethink himself, while drawing near, of
what his purpose should be. Our forefathers Sunday began on Saturday
night, and partly for that reason the hallowing influence of it ran
over into Monday, at all events. What likelihood is there that much
good will come of worship to people who talk politics or scandal right
up to the church door? Is reading newspapers in the pews, which they
tell us in England is not unknown in America, a good preparation for
worshipping God? The heaviest rain runs off parched ground, unless it
has been first softened by a gentle fall of moisture. Hearts that have
no dew of previous meditation to make them receptive are not likely to
drink in much of the showers of blessing which may be falling round
them. The formal worshipper who goes to the house of God because it is
the hour when he has always gone; the curious worshipper (?) who draws
near to hear indeed, but to hear a man, not God; and all the other
sorts of mere outward worshippers who make so large a proportion of
every Christian congregation--get the lesson they need, to begin with,
in this precept.
Note, that right preparation for worship is better than worship
itself, if it is that of 'fools.' Drawing near with the true purpose
is better than being near with the wrong one. Note, too, the reason
for the vanity of the 'sacrifice of fools' is that 'they know not';
and why do they not know, but because they did not draw near with the
purpose of hearing? Therefore, as the last clause of the verse says,
rightly rendered, 'they do evil.' All hangs together. No matter how
much we frequent the house of God, if we go with unprepared minds and
hearts we shall remain ignorant, and because we are so, our sacrifices
will be 'evil.' If the winnowing fan of this principle were applied to
our decorous congregations, who dress their bodies for church much
more carefully than they do their souls, what a cloud of chaff would
fly off!
Then comes the direction for conduct in the act of worship. The same
thoughtfulness which kept the foot in coming to, should keep the heart
when in, the house of God. His exaltation and our lowliness should
check hasty words, blurting out uppermost wishes, or in any way
outrunning the sentiments and emotions of prepared hearts. Not that
the lesson would check the fervid flow of real desire. There is a type
of calm worship which keeps itself calm because it is cold. Propriety
and sobriety are its watchwords--both admirable things, and both dear
to tepid Christians. Other people besides the crowds on Pentecost
think that men whose lips are fired by the Spirit of God are
'drunken,' if not with wine, at all events with unwholesome
enthusiasm. But the outpourings of a soul filled, not only with the
sense that God is in heaven and we on earth, but also with the
assurance that He is near to it, and it to Him, are not rash and
hasty, however fervid. What is condemned is words which travel faster
than thoughts or feelings, or which proceed from hearts that have not
been brought into patient submission, or from such as lack reverent
realisation of God's majesty; and such faults may attach to the most
calm worship, and need not infect the most fervent. Those prayers are
not hasty which keep step with the suppliant's desires, when these
take the time from God's promises. That mouth is not rash which waits
to speak until the ear has heard.
'Let thy words be few.' The heathen 'think that they shall be heard
for much speaking.' It needs not to tell our wants in many words to
One who knows them altogether, any more than a child needs many when
speaking to a father or mother. But 'few' must be measured by the
number of needs and desires. The shortest prayer, which is not
animated by a consciousness of need and a throb of desire, is too
long; the longest, which is vitalised by these, is short enough. What
becomes of the enormous percentage of public and private prayers,
which are mere repetitions, said because they are the right thing to
say, because everybody always has said them, and not because the man
praying really wants the things he asks for, or expects to get them
any the more for asking?
Verse 3 gives a reason for the exhortation, 'A dream comes through a
multitude of business'--when a man is much occupied with any matter,
it is apt to haunt his sleeping as well as his waking thoughts. 'A
fool's voice comes through a multitude of words.' The dream is the
consequence of the pressure of business, but the fool's voice is the
cause, not the consequence, of the gush of words. What, then, is the
meaning? Probably that such a gush of words turns, as it were, the
voice of the utterer, for the time being, into that of a fool. Voluble
prayers, more abundant than devout sentiments or emotions, make the
offerer as a 'fool' and his prayer unacceptable.
The third direction refers to conduct after worship. It lays down the
general principle that vows should be paid, and that swiftly. A keen
insight into human nature suggests the importance of prompt fulfilment
of the vows; for in carrying out resolutions formed under the impulse
of the sanctuary, even more than in other departments, delays are
dangerous. Many a young heart touched by the truth has resolved to
live a Christian life, and has gone out from the house of God and put
off and put off till days have thickened into months and years, and
the intention has remained unfulfilled for ever. Nothing hardens
hearts, stiffens wills, and sears consciences so much as to be brought
to the point of melting, and then to cool down into the old shape. All
good resolutions and spiritual convictions may be included under the
name of vows; and of all it is true that it is better not to have
formed them, than to have formed and not performed them.
Verses 6 and 7 are obscure. The former seems to refer to the case of a
man who vows and then asks that he may be absolved from his vow by the
priest or other ecclesiastical authority. His mouth--that is, his
spoken promise--leads him into sin, if he does not fulfil it (comp.
Deut. xxiii, 21, 22). He asks release from his promise on the ground
that it is a sin of weakness. The 'angel' is best understood as the
priest (messenger), as in Malachi ii.7. Such a wriggling out of a vow
will bring God's anger; for the 'voice' which promised what the hand
will not perform, sins.
Verse 7 is variously rendered. The Revised Version supplies at the
beginning, 'This comes to pass,' and goes on 'through the multitude of
dreams and vanities and many words.' But this scarcely bears upon the
context, which requires here a reason against rash speech and vows.
The meaning seems better given, either by the rearranged text which
Delitzsch suggests, 'In many dreams and many words there are also many
vanities' (so, substantially, the Auth. Ver.), or as Wright, following
Hitzig, etc., has it, 'In the multitude of dreams are also vanities,
and [in] many words [as well].' The simile of verse 3 is recurred to,
and the whirling visions of unsubstantial dreams are likened to the
rash words of voluble prayers in that both are vanity. Thus the writer
reaches his favourite thought, and shows how vanity infects even
devotion. The closing injunction to 'fear God' sets in sharp contrast
with faulty outward worship the inner surrender and devotion, which
will protect against such empty hypocrisy. If the heart is right, the
lips will not be far wrong.
Verses 8 and 9 have no direct connection with the preceding, and their
connection with the following (vs. 10-12) is slight. Their meaning is
dubious. According to the prevailing view now, the abuses of
government in verse 8 are those of the period of the writer; and the
last clauses do not, as might appear at first reading, console
sufferers by the thought that God is above rapacious dignitaries, but
bids the readers not be surprised if small officials plunder, since
the same corruption goes upwards through all grades of functionaries.
With such rotten condition of things is contrasted, in verse 9, the
happy state of a people living under a patriarchal government, where
the king draws his revenues, not from oppression, but from
agriculture. The Revised Version gives in its margin this rendering.
The connection of these verses with the following may be that they
teach the vanity of riches under such a state of society as they
describe. What is the use of scraping wealth together when hungry
officials are 'watching' to pounce on it? How much better to be
contented with the modest prosperity of a quiet country life! If the
translation of verse 9 in the Authorised Version and the Revised
Version is retained, there is a striking contrast between the rapine
of the city, where men live by preying on each other (as they do still
to a large extent, for 'commerce' is often nothing better), and the
wholesome natural life of the country, where the kindly earth yields
fruit, and one man's gain is not another's loss.
Thus the verses may be connected with the wise depreciation of money
which follows. That low estimate is based on three grounds, which
great trading nations like England and the United States need to have
dinned into their ears. First, no man ever gets enough of worldly
wealth. The appetite grows faster than the balance at the banker's.
That is so because the desire that is turned to outward wealth really
needs something else, and has mistaken its object. God, not money or
money's worth, is the satisfying possession. It is so because all
appetites, fed on earthly things, increase by gratification, and
demand ever larger draughts. The jaded palate needs stronger
stimulants. The seasoned opium-eater has to increase his doses to
produce the same effects. Second, the race after riches is a race
after a phantom, because the more one has of them the more people
there spring up to share them. The poor man does with one servant; the
rich man has fifty; and his own portion of his wealth is a very small
item. His own meal is but a small slice off the immense provisions for
which he has the trouble of paying. It is so, thirdly, because in the
chase he deranges his physical nature; and when he has got his wealth,
it only keeps him awake at night thinking how he shall guard it and
keep it safe.
That which costs so much to get, which has so little power to satisfy,
which must always be less than the wish of the covetous man, which
costs so much to keep, which stuffs pillows with thorns, is surely
vanity. Honest work is rewarded by sweet sleep. The old legend told of
unslumbering guards who kept the treasure of the golden fruit. The
millionaire has to live in a barred house, and to be always on the
lookout lest some combination of speculators should pull down his
stocks, or some change in the current of population should make his
city lots worthless. Black care rides behind the successful man of
business. Better to have done a day's work which has earned a night's
repose than to be the slave of one's wealth, as all men are who make
it their aim and their supreme good. Would that these lessons were
printed deep on the hearts of young Englishmen and Americans!